Why Mad Men Are Getting Into Game Development

In Abductionary, the iPad game made by ad agency DOJO, you form words from falling letters. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

DOJO founders Geoff Edwards and Mauro Alencar are advertising industry vets. They’ve led campaigns at some of the biggest firms, including Publicis and DDB. And they’ve done work for some of the most recognizable names in consumer branding — Budweiser, Gatorade, Hewlett-Packard and Wells Fargo, to name just a few.

But now the duo is taking its ad agency into an entirely different direction: iOS game development.

The small San Francisco-based shop has released Abductionary, a word puzzle game for the iPad. It’s the agency’s first app created without client backing or for any type of greater marketing purposes. And as far as Edwards and Alencar know, DOJO is the only advertising agency to launch a side business in independent app development.

“From the get go when we started our company, we designated some of our revenue to creating our own stuff,” Alencar told Wired. “We funded this ourselves and we believe that if it reduces our margin in certain cases, it’s absolutely worth it. We’re investing in our ideas and ourselves.”

While it’s common for ad agencies to develop apps, they’re most often in the service of a specific client. For example, Goodby Silverstein & Partners launched the Chevy Game Time app this past Superbowl, and Clemenger BBDO recently released an app for Pepsi called Pepsi Max Top Mates. DOJO also has experience in this area of app development, having created AT&T’s JustUS Android app last year.

For an ad agency, this model makes total sense. You directly charge your clients for all the costs associated with making apps, websites, commercials, and print advertisements. It’s a guaranteed revenue stream — and by developing apps for others, you build your own in-house expertise.

But DOJO wants to make sure it can survive beyond the traditional client-agency relationship, and that’s where Abductionary comes in.

“We’re in an industry where we use all of our efforts creating temporary things for others — things that regardless of how good they are, have a lifespan,” Alencar said. “They generate revenue for the company for a certain amount of time and then that revenue goes away. When you create technology like software, like a game, that people like, you can continue to update with new features. It generates revenue for the company for an unlimited amount of time.”

DOJO founders Mauro Alencar and Geoff Edwards. Photo: DOJO

In other words, DOJO wants to get into a growing, money-making industry. And considering that a recent Nielsen report found that apps per smartphone have increased 28 percent in the past year, from 32 to 41 apps, it makes total sense. Nielsen even dubbed 2012 “the year of the app.”

Creating a game was especially appealing for the DOJO team. The agency is familiar with the gaming industry, having worked with clients like Activision, the company behind Call of Duty and Guitar Hero, as well as French game publisher Ubisoft.

Of course, not all iOS game developers make a ton of money from their apps, especially when you take into account how much it costs to develop the software.

Emeric Thoa, the co-founder of indie game developer The Game Bankers, wrote an insightful post earlier this year detailing how much app developers can expect to make with their iOS games.

Thao found that App Store blockbuster hits can earn a hefty pile of cash. For example, Chillingo’s Cut the Rope sold 3 million games at $1 in six weeks, and Tiny Wings sold 3 million copies at $1 in just two weeks. And naturally, over time, both of these games continue to generate revenue.

But these breakout successes aren’t commonplace. More often, good iOS games from indie developers will make a modest sum. Flower Garden raked in $21,000 over the course of eight months, and Thao’s own game SQUIDS grossed $75,000 in the first month.

“As for the money itself, even though SQUIDS hasn’t made us rich so far, revenues from the iOS version have almost covered our development costs,” Thao writes in his post. “And we are confident that its upcoming release on other platforms will make the game profitable and allow us to develop a sequel.”

But even though DOJO hopes to get a piece of the iOS app pie, money was not the driving force behind creating an iOS game.

“Of course we’d love it if the game took off. Hey, it’s our baby — every parent loves to see his or her offspring succeed.” Edwards told Wired. “But we really did it as a learning and creative effort.”

While Mad Men makes ’60s-era advertising look fresh and creative, we don’t typically view modern advertising agencies in the same positive light. Nonetheless, today’s ad agencies are often staffed with just the right kind of talent to develop innovative software. DOJO saw this in its workforce, and felt it only natural for the agency to take its expertise in games to create its own product.

“Under the very same roof, we have people who are amazing storytellers and people who are amazing at creating visuals. Then we have really good programmers who can turn those two things into an interactive experience,” Alencar said.

The result is Abductionary, an iPad game that takes elements from word games like Scrabble and Words With Friends, and pairs them with time limitations, like what you experience in Tetris and Tiny Wings. In the game, you’re cast in the role of an alien who has abducted human beings in order to learn their language. (The game is currently available in English, Spanish and Portuguese.)

As letters fall into a machine called the Language Extractor 6000, your goal is to form words as quickly as possible. You’re awarded points for the words you form based on the word’s length and letters used. If you quickly form a lot of words, you’ll gain access to power-ups — for example, your letters will fall more slowly, or you’ll get a mystery tile that can be used as any letter. (Scrabble much?)

And the more letters you don’t use, the more the machine overheats, and the faster the game ends.

As far as iPad games go, Abductionary offers just the right amount of challenge to be addictive — it’s not so easy that you get bored, and not so difficult that you get frustrated. And the music and visuals are particularly impressive. (The app is enhanced for the new iPad’s Retina display.) What you won’t see in Abductionary is any blatant DOJO branding. In fact, the only mention of DOJO is in the game’s settings, where you’ll see a small agency logo.

“We wanted to put our money where our mouth’s at,” Alencar explained. “We keep telling our clients about going out and doing something that isn’t necessarily heavily branded because you’re engaging the audience in an experience. Strategically, we wanted our clients to come to us and say, ‘I want to do a game like this, too.'”

So what’s in store for DOJO’s future? Will the agency become a full-on game developer, or maybe shoot off into something else entirely?

“The reality is, Who knows?” Edwards said. “It will come out of our minds and the minds of our team. They’re geniuses. It will not replicate Abductionary. Maybe we’ll make a better waffle iron. It will be something we’re passionate about.”